What China's Military Budget Reveals

3/5/2013 3:44AM

China's Xi Jinping is also the head of China's military. Scott Harold, an associate political scientist from Rand think tank, talks about what to expect from China's military under Xi's administration.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... the the ... with me and Daisy ... as a sheet and he is also the head of the country's military ... and ever con joining me now is not herald ... associate political scientists and ... ran ... out into the sea ... ok so um let's start with ... Xi Jinping is perceived as a as a military leader I'm going forward ... with his experience in the military and the ... busy shipping at the military the ... world ever by contrast to the two previous ... people held his position she actually has a ... history with millet re going on with back to early nineteen eighties ... when he served as the assistant to the then Minister of defense ... also his wife is a prominent appeal a general in the performing arts troupe so he is very familiar with the culture ... now since he's taken office ... as the head of the central tree Commission ... he's visited a large number of military installations he's talked about enhancing preparation ... for combat which is basically meant ... as an encouragement to do greater exercising more realistic exercising ... he's talked about in broader terms of China dream which means in essence is part of rich country but in part a strong military of course China's history is one ... where its people perceive that national weakness led to almost ... disintegration of the country ... a and data at a time where China is involved in a lot of territorial disputes that in the East China South China seas ... this added ... to the fact that time is at is expected to increase its military budget how is that likely to impact and what what does that tell us ... what we are actually right to breathe in the ... conflict in the East China Sea in the South China Sea are of course on everyone's mind but as we look at this defense budget ... evolution it's actually been growing for several decades now ... on at least two decades of theory steady ... strong growth ... ah so in that sense we can't read this and say oh my gosh China's ramping up defense spending in fact by comparison to last year their defense growth of the defense budget has actually slowed a bit ... aam but of course ... every other country in the region is basically seeing flat or declining defense budgets Wallace while China's Ismar continuing to grow ... part of that is because China has a very archaic military of course during the nineteen sixties and seventies and invest much it's another trying to rehabilitate the entire village and transform it ... to be a much more modern fighting force ... aam but they are going to be able to put more resources against a full set of problems that previously they would not of had capabilities to deal with them so that could ... cause some tension with neighbors like Japan ... or in the South China Sea ... and as people eight countries like the US I'm Watch China's military what type sad ... change is are they looking towards on for any insight as to what the strategy may be going for ... well I think you could say there are possibly two different ... things that they could be looking for one would be things read say ok the defense budget has grown but it's not that alarming ... so for example if a lot of this goes to ... paying a better wage to soldiers in China ... or improving housing conditions on base ... um that something that doesn't really go to capabilities and so that would not be very alarming effect of course as we've seen China has had a lot of inflation ... as everyone in Asia knows the cost of housing has gone up dramatically ... so if a lot of this money goes to housing and cost of living ... people will use worried ... on the other hand if it goes very intensely into cyber efforts ... if it goes into expanding China's missile force are building more submarines ... were improving China's ability to project force far from its borders ... then we could see greater tensions because that would potentially put them out in the Indian Ocean ... of the Western Pacific the ability to shoot down satellites and deep inside her efforts against the possible adversaries ... saucer thing for countries like the U S Taiwan Japan ... might be a will to ... live ... and Cyber has certainly been a top pick due to our lately ...